England 0-0 Algeria: Pathetic England Ruin Chances

England continued their dismal 2010 World Cup performance today with a 0-0 draw against Algeria.

After England’s 1-1 draw last week against the United States, everyone expected England to come out guns a-blazing against Algeria. But the way they played was embarrassing. Wayne Rooney was absolutely abysmal yet again for England. And as he was walking off the pitch, he mouthed something into the TV cameras.

The remaining England players played poorly too. The only positive was a safe performance by David James but he wasn’t really tested that much.

For an England team that came into this tournament with so much hope and desire, this feels like one broken promise after another. As a follower of English football, you have to wonder what’s going through the minds of the players. How can they be so inept in a game that they could and should have won so comfortably?

Having said that, Algeria played bravely and put on a admirable defensive performance. So many times when it looked like England was going to score, Algeria would get in a last ditch-tackle to prevent England from scoring. Algeria must have learned a lot about how to prevent England from scoring by watching how the USA defended against England last week.

For England supporters, this was yet another poor performance by England in a tournament where they have a golden opportunity to shine. England coach Fabio Capello, despite his club track record, has been unable to make a difference with his squad. And his decision to start Heskey and Barry seemed to backfire. Peter Crouch and Joe Cole would have been much more useful, but Capello must see something with those two accomplished players that prevents them from starting for England. What that is, I do not know.

England now goes into their last game of the group with a game against Slovenia. The Eastern European team are capable of beating England if Capello’s side plays the way they did today. As for Algeria, they’ll have a lot of confidence going into their game against the United States.

About The Author

Publisher of World Soccer Talk, Christopher Harris founded the site in 2005. He has been interviewed by The New York Times, The Guardian and several other publications. Plus he has made appearances on NPR, BBC World, CBC, BBC Five Live, talkSPORT and beIN SPORT.
Harris, who was born and raised in Wales, has lived in Florida since 1984, and supported Swansea City since 1979. Last but not least, he got engaged during half-time of a MLS game.

14 Comments

This is verbatim, but Rooney said something along the lines of: “Nice to get booed by your own fans, that’s no way to support your nation!”.

I’m not English, I don’t support England. In fact I thought the result was hilarious, but it’s disgraceful for Rooney to say that considering how poor he was. Stan Collymore said Rooney looked “like a pub player” and Collymore is wrong, a pub player would’ve chased back when he gave the ball away on the edge of the box, which Algeria almost scored from by the way. The fandom that surrounds Rooney is weird, some people won’t allow people to be critical of this man but he deserves to be raked over the coals. He’s not a child anymore, he’s self-absorbed, and he’s petulant. He has, in his two matches, been the worst player at the World Cup not playing for Australia. If anyone would start him over Crouch next week they should have their head examined.

When are you going to realise that we (I’m an Irishman and I say we because England and Ireland play the same brand of football) remain behind the rest of the world in terms of technical ability. England will go out miserably and we’ll go back to our club teams and pretend that everything is ok because the Premier League is the best in the world.

We can’t keep papering over the cracks. Ask yourself how can some of the best players in the world be outplayed by the USA and Algeria? Interesting that in all the TV interview of England fans exiting the game not one mentioned technical ability or team cohesion. Seems you can fool all of the people all of the time with this England team.

Nobody in our group has played well and whoever comes second in our group has the pleasure of going up against Germany next.

I don’t think any of us will get very far. Having said that Spain lost their first game and Germany lost to Serbia. I don’t think anybody is having a good day at the World Cup. You could argue Argentina have done well but they weren’t very good in their first game either and may wilt against tougher competition.

I stayed up to watch this in Oz and what a waste of time. It looked like New Zealand would get a draw with England the way they played. Undone by a team with better technical ability. A team that played faster, passed faster and lucky for England didn’t have a great striker.

Something has happened to England and it’s very bad. At best they will draw with Slovenia and go home.

The team as a whole were dreadful, less touch and passing ability than any team in any game so far in this world cup, and yes i include Austraila against Germany in that assesment. Tatt being said, even marginally competent play from Rooney would have been enough, can anyone remember the last time he actually played well in an England shirt? Its been seven games without a goal, longer than that since he had a good game, perhaps a game on the bench will do him good, cant hurt because if he plays like this again England are going home anyway.

Time for Capello to shake things up and drop half the team who started today. The subs cannot do any worse than the regulars. Maybe it’s time to realize that English soccer players are just not technically good enough to compete at this level. Right now they are totally rubbish. The 30th ranked nation, Algeria, played better football than the 8th ranked nation, England. Says it all.

Where are all the England faithfuls who said this group was easy, you’re going to get 9 easy points and that you’re going to get to the semis, at least? I just want all of those people that have been grilling us USA fans to get over themselves and realize that time has passed England and many nations have caught up. And what nations like the US, Algeria and Slovenia have done is developed team chemistry and heart, while England think that they can rely on talent alone. As Herb Brooks said, you don’t have enough talent to Run on talent alone.

But since 1970 it has provided me with a source of comedic genius every world cup. What a pathetic excuse for 11 grown men to get paid obsurd amounts of money for little ( or no ) skill. When children are dying from cancer due to lack of funding.

It just puts things into perspective.

Superstars ? More like overpaid spoilt idiots who bring shame on England.